Library, Kids and the Internet
Hello! My name is Sebi and I’m going to tell you about the project I did with the Huskvarna library, here in Sweden.

Huskvarna Library
 Renew Children's section
 What about the Internet?
Requirements
 Room + media + web
 Engaging kids
 Limited budget
 Concrete & Realistic

...and the Shelf
The shelf was an exhibition shelf recently acquired by the library, made by a local artist. The librarians were very excited about
and asked me if I could consider somehow including it in the design.

Interactions
between the kids!
Fun, fun, fun!
So I knew the library people (Gunvi and Lo) really liked the shelf, and I knew that the kids loved games and instant messaging.
And I also had my own thoughts about what a successful concept should be like.
Based on these factors, I came up with a number of concepts, and I’m going to show 3 of them.

1. Discussion shelf
ROOM WEB
Discussion shelf:
- same content in the room and on the web
- what kind of media would be appropriate for feedback and discussion?

1. Discussion shelf. Room
In the room, simple post-its and colored pencils worked quite well.

1. Discussion shelf. Room

1. Discussion shelf. Room

1. Discussion shelf. Room

1. Discussion shelf. Room

1. Discussion shelf. Room

1. Discussion shelf. Web
http://vimeo.com/4947136
On the web:
- I integrated with the library blog, which was already there
- emoticons worked best for leaving feedback (most expression for the least effort). then came ratings and then written text

2. Chat on shelf
http://vimeo.com/4947577
Each ‘shelf’ has a IM account (robot), which kids can add to their contact list. When one of them writes to ‘red.shelf’, for instance, the chat robot send
the message to all the contacts in its list. This way kids can be connected anonymously to other kids, using the shelf. Ideally, the discussion will
somehow be related to what’s on the shelf (maybe allow chatting from the website, too..?)

2. Chat on shelf. Test run
I had a really nice ‘Wizard of Oz’ ready for testing this concept, but due to technology reasons, the testing didn’t go so well, so I
couldn’t get too relevant results.

2. Chat on shelf. Test run
Kids were trying to figure out what was happening, since nothing much was happening...

3. Vote your favorites
http://vimeo.com/4947834
Vote your favorites / Honor shelf - make voting fun
2 major rules for the ‘game’:
- items with the most votes belong in the circle of honor
- to vote, drag and drop from the bottom side to the circle

3. Vote your favorites. Test run
http://vimeo.com/4947697
Test went very well. Kids loved it!
In the first part, they were allowed to play all at the same time, and they ‘jumped’ at the game and pulled items in all directions.
At one point we had to stop them, they were getting too excited. Then they had to take turns playing. It was extremely
interesting to see how they developed strategy for cooperation in order to promote their favorites (girls liked girl games, boys
liked boy games)

Next steps
Discussion shelf Vote favorites Shelf on chat
• simple • fun! • test itself failed
• inexpensive • developers? • could still work...
• “safe”
Yes! Later Maybe some day

Thank you!